[00:00.000 --> 00:03.580]  We get to watch headlines that tell us nonsense.
[00:04.500 --> 00:06.000]  Thank you for your attention.
[00:06.000 --> 00:08.640]  I hope you found these analyses of interest.
[00:08.900 --> 00:13.360]  And as always, I look forward to speaking with you again next week.
[00:14.860 --> 00:22.780]  And the previous program was Economic Update with Richard Wolff, heard Wednesdays at 6.30 p.m.
[00:22.840 --> 00:25.100]  right after the WBAI Evening News.
[00:25.600 --> 00:29.160]  Stay tuned for Off the Hook coming up immediately.
[00:45.520 --> 00:54.020]  You are listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM New York, WBAI.org everywhere.
[00:54.640 --> 00:56.980]  Time is just about 7 p.m.
[00:57.500 --> 01:00.280]  It's time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
[01:06.000 --> 01:10.620]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[01:11.480 --> 01:16.120]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[01:16.860 --> 01:18.940]  We couldn't get much worse.
[01:19.680 --> 01:21.500]  But if they could, they would.
[01:21.760 --> 01:24.400]  Bum-dilly-bump, but the best is back for worst.
[01:25.100 --> 01:26.920]  I hope the thunder's good.
[01:27.120 --> 01:28.000]  Bum-dilly-bump!
[01:50.300 --> 01:52.360]  A very good evening to you.
[01:53.400 --> 01:55.640]  The program is Off the Hook.
[01:56.600 --> 01:57.260]  Rob T.
[01:57.380 --> 01:58.520]  Firefly here with you.
[01:58.520 --> 02:00.820]  And I am joined here by Gila.
[02:01.020 --> 02:01.300]  Hello!
[02:02.000 --> 02:06.160]  And over in Skypeland, we have Alex with us.
[02:06.760 --> 02:07.460]  Good evening.
[02:09.780 --> 02:14.420]  And we should also have Kyle and Emanuel in Parts Unknown.
[02:15.180 --> 02:16.740]  Hey, how are you?
[02:16.800 --> 02:17.460]  How is everyone?
[02:17.980 --> 02:19.280]  We are well.
[02:19.640 --> 02:25.460]  I think most of us survived the double threat of scary days.
[02:25.460 --> 02:27.980]  That was, of course, Halloween and Election Day.
[02:28.900 --> 02:34.220]  You know, I gotta say, we're out here in Washington State still.
[02:35.640 --> 02:40.120]  I'm bummed out that Wednesday has to follow Tuesday.
[02:40.280 --> 02:40.840]  Why is that?
[02:41.160 --> 02:45.020]  Who decreed that Wednesday always has to come right after Tuesday?
[02:45.020 --> 02:54.400]  The reason that upsets me is because we always wind up doing a show after Sunday, Tuesday.
[02:55.020 --> 02:56.400]  And everyone's in a bad mood.
[02:56.520 --> 02:57.120]  Everyone is depressed.
[02:57.380 --> 02:59.360]  Well, a couple of things here.
[02:59.420 --> 03:01.080]  First of all, I'm depressed too.
[03:01.320 --> 03:05.680]  I'm upset at a lot of the results.
[03:07.640 --> 03:09.280]  But you gotta ask yourself a few questions.
[03:09.540 --> 03:11.060]  Are you the same person?
[03:11.400 --> 03:13.060]  Are your friends the same people?
[03:13.060 --> 03:18.200]  Are you basically in the same situation you were in 24 hours ago?
[03:18.360 --> 03:18.500]  Okay?
[03:18.940 --> 03:22.740]  And if that's the case, then at least you've got that.
[03:23.180 --> 03:24.700]  The world is going nuts.
[03:25.060 --> 03:27.020]  We're electing the wrong people.
[03:27.020 --> 03:29.080]  We're reacting to the wrong things.
[03:29.920 --> 03:35.160]  And we're being faced with obstinance and stupidity and ridiculousness at every turn.
[03:35.540 --> 03:36.580]  But we have each other.
[03:37.020 --> 03:38.120]  We have our minds.
[03:38.260 --> 03:39.300]  We have our ambitions.
[03:40.860 --> 03:43.480]  And we shouldn't let go of that.
[03:43.660 --> 03:47.140]  So, you know, for everybody there that's tearing out their hair, I get it.
[03:47.180 --> 03:47.620]  I understand.
[03:47.940 --> 03:48.980]  And I feel the same way.
[03:49.120 --> 03:50.680]  But we're going to do better.
[03:51.320 --> 03:55.880]  We have to unite a little better, I think.
[03:56.000 --> 03:57.220]  We have to communicate a little better.
[03:57.220 --> 04:04.120]  We have to basically impress upon people that, you know, it's really important that you get out there and vote.
[04:04.300 --> 04:09.240]  If you didn't, you voted for whatever side you want.
[04:10.200 --> 04:10.860]  You did.
[04:11.060 --> 04:16.000]  And I don't want to hear that you were disenchanted with the way Democrats did things.
[04:16.000 --> 04:17.020]  Okay, fine.
[04:17.260 --> 04:18.440]  You can be disenchanted.
[04:18.540 --> 04:21.660]  But if you don't vote, you have no opportunity to change that.
[04:22.060 --> 04:24.800]  Because those people won't be in power anymore.
[04:25.620 --> 04:32.020]  So, while I basically blame for people that didn't vote for more.
[04:32.400 --> 04:36.060]  You know, because you're the guys that basically said, I'm not going to make a decision.
[04:36.360 --> 04:37.380]  You do it for me.
[04:37.700 --> 04:42.840]  And, you know, this whole thing about blaming Democrats for everything not happening exactly the way you want it to.
[04:42.940 --> 04:43.720]  It's so childish.
[04:44.060 --> 04:45.800]  I mean, we are coming out of a pandemic.
[04:46.000 --> 04:48.200]  We are coming out of a crashed economy.
[04:48.420 --> 04:51.680]  And we're coming out of near-fascism.
[04:52.420 --> 04:54.100]  All sorts of horrible things like that.
[04:54.440 --> 04:56.240]  It takes everything to be fixed immediately.
[04:56.600 --> 04:57.540]  It doesn't work that way.
[04:57.680 --> 04:58.400]  It takes time.
[04:58.920 --> 05:03.720]  And a $5 trillion bill to go for anybody.
[05:04.040 --> 05:09.760]  But it's not that way to get there is to vote more people up to power, not less.
[05:10.520 --> 05:15.120]  And we seem to have to keep learning this lesson over and over and over again.
[05:16.320 --> 05:21.300]  So, really, the only thing that I can say coming out of all this is that we need to do better as people.
[05:21.300 --> 05:23.240]  Yes, we know politicians need to do better.
[05:23.380 --> 05:35.260]  But we individual people out there, the young, the old, majorities, minorities, whatever, we all have to get out there and vote for what we need, even if it's not 100% of what we want.
[05:35.260 --> 05:37.020]  Otherwise, you get zero.
[05:37.760 --> 05:42.380]  And that's pretty much what we face on these Wednesdays at fall election day.
[05:42.540 --> 05:45.820]  I do have one bit of good news, though, for those of you who are tearing your hair out.
[05:46.260 --> 05:47.000]  New Jersey?
[05:49.520 --> 05:51.000]  For the Democratic candidates.
[05:51.280 --> 05:52.900]  I'm sorry, can you repeat that about New Jersey?
[05:53.120 --> 05:54.720]  You're slipping in and out a little bit.
[05:59.070 --> 06:03.270]  Yeah, well, like I said, they won.
[06:03.370 --> 06:04.090]  They won a race.
[06:04.410 --> 06:07.070]  Yes, only one race out of a million, but they won a race.
[06:07.270 --> 06:07.990]  So, there you go.
[06:08.910 --> 06:10.230]  Who is they that won a race?
[06:10.550 --> 06:11.670]  You're cutting in and out.
[06:15.470 --> 06:16.750]  I don't know if you're kidding or what.
[06:16.910 --> 06:20.510]  No, no, Skypland is not being friendly to you at the moment.
[06:21.210 --> 06:23.610]  No, it's not Skypland, okay?
[06:24.270 --> 06:24.930]  It's web.
[06:29.280 --> 06:29.700]  Well.
[06:31.000 --> 06:33.640]  I just threw everything out of the window.
[06:33.980 --> 06:35.080]  Okay, well, let that be there.
[06:36.700 --> 06:39.600]  I'm just going to get on a race, all right?
[06:40.680 --> 06:50.700]  Okay, well, Kyle over there can listen to Emanuel, and the rest of us can think about listening to Emanuel when we can hear him properly again.
[06:51.180 --> 06:54.300]  But, um, I think, I think we got most of the gist of what he was saying.
[06:54.780 --> 06:55.760]  Did you hear anything I said?
[06:55.980 --> 06:59.040]  We, we, we could, we could hear you, we could hear you intermittently.
[06:59.720 --> 07:01.040]  We could hear you intermittently.
[07:01.300 --> 07:04.180]  We kept hearing you say, won a race, but we didn't hear who.
[07:04.600 --> 07:04.820]  Okay.
[07:07.530 --> 07:08.210]  And once again.
[07:08.230 --> 07:08.790]  And there you go again.
[07:11.050 --> 07:12.510]  I feel like Reagan during the debates.
[07:12.650 --> 07:13.310]  There you go again.
[07:14.610 --> 07:15.330]  But, uh...
[07:16.950 --> 07:18.470]  He's just got to get out of the refrigerator.
[07:18.470 --> 07:21.630]  I don't understand my insist on doing the show from a refrigerator.
[07:22.010 --> 07:27.330]  Yeah, I mean, he's most comfortable in a Faraday cage, and, uh, that's just not cooperating with what we need from him at the moment.
[07:27.990 --> 07:30.450]  Um, but, uh, yeah, election day did happen.
[07:30.790 --> 07:37.910]  Um, we, we, uh, we voted locally, uh, yesterday, and the, the turnout seemed pretty good, um, in our, in our neck of Queens.
[07:37.910 --> 07:44.650]  It was, there was a very, um, aggressive street team that was there for one of the city council candidates.
[07:45.190 --> 07:51.670]  Um, something interesting that happened in New York this year was that, like, a huge majority of the city council got term limited out.
[07:52.510 --> 07:55.590]  So, there was, there is a lot of turnover in the city council this year.
[07:56.070 --> 08:01.830]  And in the primaries, there was, there was a huge primary field for our city council seat.
[08:01.830 --> 08:01.830]  Right.
[08:02.210 --> 08:08.370]  And everyone who was running basically said, vote for me, I'm whatever demographic.
[08:08.670 --> 08:10.550]  Vote for me, I'm Jewish.
[08:10.810 --> 08:12.130]  Vote for me, I'm Asian.
[08:12.350 --> 08:13.730]  Vote for me, I'm from this country.
[08:13.730 --> 08:16.130]  And one person actually said, vote for me, I have ideas.
[08:17.830 --> 08:19.310]  And won the nomination.
[08:19.870 --> 08:25.170]  And then the opponent came out in the last couple of weeks and was like, vote for me.
[08:25.170 --> 08:26.230]  My opponent's a socialist.
[08:27.350 --> 08:40.830]  Um, and when we got to our polling place last night, the street team of that particular candidate was standing in front of a minivan that was parked halfway on the sidewalk and very aggressively flyering as people walked in.
[08:41.230 --> 08:41.390]  Yeah.
[08:41.530 --> 08:50.190]  And I, I, our estimate was that it was within the 100 feet barrier that you're not supposed to have, uh, electioneering within, but, uh, yeah, it is what it is.
[08:50.290 --> 08:56.770]  And they were very obviously a paid street team who, uh, I'm, I'm not sure we're completely familiar with the candidate for whom they were working.
[08:56.970 --> 08:58.150]  I think that is very fair, Azma.
[08:59.150 --> 09:01.830]  But, uh, it's, it's always a ride, um, election day, isn't it?
[09:01.930 --> 09:06.370]  There, there was a clip going around, um, by a group on Twitter, uh, known as the good liars.
[09:06.570 --> 09:07.970]  You can find them, uh, elsewhere too.
[09:08.510 --> 09:15.150]  And, uh, they, they go around and basically interview people, uh, people at specific rallies and events and things.
[09:15.590 --> 09:20.830]  And, uh, this was them, um, doing a man on the street interview with, uh, somebody with a U.S.
[09:20.910 --> 09:24.310]  Air Force cap, um, about the governor's race in Virginia.
[09:24.310 --> 09:28.910]  And I'd just like to play this clip and I'm going to use high technology to make sure that you guys can hear this too.
[09:29.330 --> 09:32.510]  What's the most important issue in the governor's race here in Virginia?
[09:32.870 --> 09:38.150]  Getting back to the basics of teaching children, not teaching them critical race theory.
[09:38.610 --> 09:41.170]  And, uh, and what is critical race theory?
[09:42.470 --> 09:51.750]  Well, I'm not going to get into the specifics of it because I don't understand it that much, but it's something that I don't, what little bit that I know I don't care for.
[09:51.750 --> 09:54.670]  And, and what have you heard that, that you don't, that you don't like?
[09:54.730 --> 10:07.650]  Well, I'm not, I'm, I'm not gonna, uh, you know, I don't, uh, I don't, uh, I don't, I don't have that much knowledge on it, but it's something that I'm not, that I don't care for.
[10:09.290 --> 10:15.350]  And, uh, I think that paints a good picture of, uh, as, as Emmanuel was saying, if you didn't vote, you voted for whoever won.
[10:15.350 --> 10:24.830]  And, uh, you basically went with the majority, even when the majority are perhaps not the, uh, most informed about the issues and, uh, factors at play.
[10:25.850 --> 10:26.370]  Yeah.
[10:26.610 --> 10:32.930]  But, you know, I think that operating on fear can be a very powerful motivator.
[10:33.090 --> 10:42.210]  And especially when you're looking in the off years, one thing that I will say was very entertaining, um, was one of the, the ballot proposals last night.
[10:42.210 --> 10:50.950]  Um, proposition two on the ballot said, you know, uh, every New Yorker has a right to clean water and clean air.
[10:51.470 --> 10:52.310]  Yes or no.
[10:53.110 --> 10:57.290]  And as we were leaving the bowling place, I said to Rob, who votes no on that?
[10:58.590 --> 11:05.890]  Um, a lot of people, apparently it passed, but not with quite the margin you would have hoped.
[11:06.330 --> 11:06.470]  Yeah.
[11:06.510 --> 11:08.730]  It wasn't quite a landslide with the air and water.
[11:08.990 --> 11:09.250]  No.
[11:09.510 --> 11:11.970]  Which would have been a shame because then you'd have all the elements together, I think.
[11:11.970 --> 11:19.110]  But, um, but yeah, some, somebody went up to the booth and said, no, I don't think every New Yorker has the right to clean air and water, but it passed.
[11:19.250 --> 11:22.550]  So it's nice to know that, you know, we have that right now.
[11:23.130 --> 11:23.790]  It's reassuring.
[11:24.210 --> 11:25.010]  It really is.
[11:27.690 --> 11:28.030]  Anyway.
[11:28.930 --> 11:29.610]  Go ahead, Alex.
[11:29.790 --> 11:35.590]  You know, on the, uh, on the subject of the, you know, the ballots and voting and things, I went out and voted.
[11:35.590 --> 11:38.770]  I thought it was, went relatively smoothly as well.
[11:39.010 --> 11:45.830]  You know, also given the snafus I've had in the past with, with my name and erroneous spellings of it and whatnot.
[11:46.450 --> 11:49.870]  Um, but everything went, I think, uh, rather smoothly yesterday.
[11:50.730 --> 11:59.530]  Um, but it is a little bit, I have to say, disheartening to see that, you know, for certain races, there is just one candidate.
[11:59.530 --> 12:15.370]  You know, for instance, for my, my city council member was, was running, uh, unopposed, you know, so, so now I'm going to have to have, you know, this, this city council member who used to work for Corey Johnson as his chief of staff, and, uh, now Eric Botcher is going to be my city council member.
[12:15.430 --> 12:21.230]  And it just feels like this is the kind of thing that should have some kind of opposition and a real contest.
[12:21.550 --> 12:26.730]  And if we don't have a real contest, this is the type of thing that, that keeps people from going to the polls.
[12:26.730 --> 12:34.370]  So, and it's the same thing with, you know, justices of the, I think it was of the civil court or of the supreme court.
[12:34.910 --> 12:40.210]  They just often, you know, you have a ballot that says, you know, choose five and there's five candidates.
[12:40.630 --> 12:45.870]  And it just feels like, you know, this is a silly exercise at some point.
[12:45.890 --> 12:48.130]  And it's not a silly exercise in and of itself.
[12:48.130 --> 12:51.750]  It's a silly exercise because more people aren't involved in the political process.
[12:51.750 --> 13:11.830]  And I think we're going to find fewer and fewer people wanting to get involved in the political process because it is so divisive and so polarizing and vitriolic over the last, you know, at least six years now, starting in 2015 when Trump really entered the primary full force.
[13:12.110 --> 13:20.070]  Since then, I feel like our politics and political scene has just been really putrid, for lack of a better word.
[13:22.250 --> 13:23.790]  And, uh, can you guys hear me at all?
[13:24.130 --> 13:24.890]  Yes, we hear you.
[13:25.910 --> 13:26.130]  Yeah.
[13:26.450 --> 13:28.230]  Did you hear anything I said before?
[13:29.490 --> 13:34.130]  Um, we're, we're hearing you now, but, uh, we, we haven't heard you for, for a bit.
[13:35.110 --> 13:37.830]  No, I know, but I, I spoke for like five minutes before you.
[13:37.950 --> 13:38.890]  Was that just gibberish?
[13:39.270 --> 13:42.910]  I, I just need to know if I need to say anything that I said before again.
[13:43.430 --> 13:44.910]  I, I think you got your point across.
[13:45.170 --> 13:48.590]  Uh, there is some confusion as to who won that race in New Jersey that you were excited about.
[13:49.830 --> 13:51.150]  Okay, God damn it all.
[13:51.250 --> 13:52.690]  The Democrats won a race.
[13:52.890 --> 13:55.390]  I, I keep trying to say this, and no one hears me say it.
[13:55.770 --> 13:59.930]  It's like, it's like the cop-esque thing I've ever, it's, it's insane.
[14:00.250 --> 14:01.950]  This is a microcosm of what we're dealing with here.
[14:02.210 --> 14:03.450]  The Democrats won a race.
[14:03.670 --> 14:06.330]  Does anybody hear this about to get a, a megaphone?
[14:06.770 --> 14:08.870]  We're, we're hearing you a lot more clearly now, actually.
[14:09.130 --> 14:10.850]  So, uh, yes, the Democrats won the race.
[14:10.850 --> 14:11.490]  Oh, good, I'm glad.
[14:12.150 --> 14:12.790]  Did they, though?
[14:13.190 --> 14:13.990]  I mean, yeah, you know...
[14:13.990 --> 14:15.610]  Last I heard, it was too close to call.
[14:16.950 --> 14:21.910]  Yeah, and that, that's why I was trying to update people that it has been called for the Democrats.
[14:22.290 --> 14:22.770]  That is wonderful.
[14:22.790 --> 14:23.590]  This is our problem.
[14:23.850 --> 14:24.110]  Thank you.
[14:24.190 --> 14:25.410]  We cannot communicate.
[14:25.690 --> 14:29.090]  This, no, seriously, this is a problem that, that liberals and Democrats have.
[14:29.190 --> 14:30.110]  They cannot communicate.
[14:30.310 --> 14:31.730]  They, they talk over each other.
[14:31.870 --> 14:32.990]  They, they don't hear each other.
[14:32.990 --> 14:36.870]  And, you know, sometimes technology is the reason, but sometimes it's just us.
[14:37.130 --> 14:41.930]  And I think it's just something that, uh, we really need to get better at, because this just keeps happening.
[14:42.130 --> 14:43.970]  The Republicans have no trouble lying.
[14:44.210 --> 14:48.950]  And, you know, this whole critical race theory, they won the race in, in Virginia based on a lie.
[14:49.310 --> 14:52.610]  Something in elementary schools that is not in elementary schools.
[14:52.790 --> 14:56.650]  But they were able to get people riled up enough to have them turn out.
[14:56.930 --> 14:58.210]  And it worked.
[14:58.430 --> 15:01.430]  It actually, and they have no shame, no apologies, no nothing.
[15:01.430 --> 15:05.970]  Basically, they got people scared, people showed up, and they won.
[15:06.670 --> 15:12.150]  You know, I don't think Democrats should do that necessarily, but they have to do more than what they've been doing.
[15:12.570 --> 15:19.670]  You know, there are more, more Democrats registered in this country by far than Republicans.
[15:19.970 --> 15:26.870]  In fact, if you look almost anywhere, Nassau County, Suffolk County, New Jersey, there are more Democrats registered than Republicans.
[15:26.870 --> 15:31.970]  Had they only shown up, they would have won every single race.
[15:32.030 --> 15:33.230]  But they didn't show up.
[15:33.410 --> 15:34.030]  That's the problem.
[15:35.110 --> 15:35.350]  Mm-hmm.
[15:36.870 --> 15:38.630]  Well, that continues to be a problem.
[15:38.870 --> 15:42.050]  And, you know, you could be part of the problem or part of the solution.
[15:42.230 --> 15:47.510]  So show up, even when it's not a magical presidential year election, it's still important.
[15:47.670 --> 15:51.390]  In fact, it's usually more important, because less people are showing up, fewer people are showing up.
[15:51.630 --> 15:56.050]  And your voice is then proportionately more important, I would say.
[15:56.210 --> 16:14.390]  It's been about 40 years, almost, since a lot of the organizations that were organizing, for lack of a better word, really on the right, on the evangelical right, began propagating this plan, really, to start local.
[16:14.610 --> 16:17.190]  And they said, we'll get in to the school boards.
[16:18.290 --> 16:24.130]  We'll get the schools, and then we can start their incremental change, and then we can start making bigger changes.
[16:24.370 --> 16:29.990]  That strategy has begun to bear fruit in a really big way, but it hasn't gone away.
[16:30.130 --> 16:37.970]  So it is really important to stay local and stay energized on the local level, even the hyper-local level.
[16:38.170 --> 16:54.550]  Not just come out when it's a presidential election, or even a congressional election, but to really, you know, participate on the local granular level as much as you possibly can, if you want to make your voice heard, or at least not completely silenced.
[16:55.170 --> 16:58.290]  You know, that is exactly how they won the race in Virginia.
[16:58.490 --> 17:10.210]  By going local, by getting panicked at the school level, by getting mothers to vote on a false premise, on believing something was a threat that was completely untrue.
[17:10.770 --> 17:12.850]  And that is how they win elections.
[17:12.850 --> 17:19.070]  And by winning on the local basis, they gain that groundswell, and it gets more and more powerful.
[17:19.310 --> 17:26.250]  And then they're able to pass legislation that makes it harder for people who disagree with them to vote, period.
[17:26.590 --> 17:33.230]  Or that gerrymanders so that you have less power than ever, and even if they're in a minority, they still maintain all the control.
[17:33.490 --> 17:35.190]  I mean, they're playing the game brilliantly.
[17:35.270 --> 17:36.370]  There's no question about that.
[17:36.430 --> 17:42.210]  But they're playing the game in a very bad spirit, and it's detrimental to our democracy.
[17:42.470 --> 17:48.530]  But again, you know, it's, it's the people who just give up or say that I'm not getting everything I want.
[17:48.530 --> 17:50.790]  So I'm just not going to participate anymore.
[17:51.030 --> 17:53.570]  I blame them more than I blame the Republicans.
[17:53.730 --> 17:56.430]  The Republicans are doing what they're supposed to do to win races.
[17:56.690 --> 17:58.990]  So the Democrats aren't doing nearly enough.
[17:59.150 --> 18:01.910]  Can I share one piece of news that you might find heartening?
[18:01.910 --> 18:03.610]  I would like that.
[18:03.810 --> 18:11.750]  Okay, in Wisconsin, in suburban Milwaukee, in the Mequon School District, and it's Mequon something I'm not remembering right now.
[18:12.130 --> 18:21.530]  There was a recall election, a challenge to the entire school board by people who I'm willing to say are kind of on the reactionary right.
[18:21.890 --> 18:22.950]  And it failed.
[18:23.330 --> 18:31.730]  They attempted to recall the entire school board saying critical race theory, and they're teaching people to, they're teaching our children to hate themselves.
[18:32.150 --> 18:37.030]  The, they attempted to recall the entire district school board, the recall effort failed.
[18:37.970 --> 18:40.570]  So, you know, sometimes it works.
[18:41.710 --> 18:44.370]  Sometimes it works, but only when people show up.
[18:44.870 --> 18:45.190]  Exactly.
[18:45.430 --> 18:46.010]  You got to show up.
[18:48.530 --> 18:52.630]  Yeah, now is not the time to give up on this system.
[18:52.950 --> 19:04.810]  It's, it's entirely unhelpful for the majority of the people in this country most affected by how the government is operating or, or not.
[19:05.970 --> 19:14.210]  Yeah, and us in the hacker community know about using the tools available to you in, you know, to, in the greatest way to the best possible end.
[19:14.450 --> 19:21.090]  And part of that tool is the voting booth or the scanning machine or however they do it where you are.
[19:22.010 --> 19:28.870]  We've been talking on this program a lot about a certain company, a certain company which recently changed its name.
[19:29.010 --> 19:33.690]  And it's a, it's a stupid name change, but we can still call them Facebook, I think.
[19:34.690 --> 19:40.590]  Just like I'm still calling that place where they play baseball out here in Queens, Shea Stadium, even though they changed that name a while back.
[19:40.710 --> 19:47.570]  But Facebook, citing societal concerns, plans to shut down its face, its facial recognition system.
[19:48.330 --> 19:51.510]  Story in the Times says that wants to find the right balance with the technology.
[19:51.990 --> 19:56.730]  And so the, the social network will delete the face scan data of more than 1 billion users.
[19:57.910 --> 19:58.490]  Um, Rob?
[19:58.730 --> 19:59.010]  Yes.
[19:59.270 --> 20:07.270]  You, you, you, I don't know if maybe I missed it before, but I don't think you mentioned the new name of Facebook, which is, of course, death.
[20:11.110 --> 20:13.430]  I would like to clarify, it's dead.
[20:14.030 --> 20:21.930]  It's, it's the, the adjective, really, yeah, the adjective form or the past tense feminine third person verb.
[20:22.130 --> 20:22.910]  It means dead.
[20:23.630 --> 20:24.910]  Yeah, let's, let's sidestep.
[20:24.990 --> 20:28.370]  And Gail, how about you explain this to people who might be very confused right now?
[20:28.510 --> 20:28.930]  Absolutely.
[20:29.410 --> 20:39.670]  Um, so a, a general truism is that if you're going to be rebranding your global brand to something, you do need to check what it means in different languages.
[20:39.690 --> 20:49.510]  Um, the classic example, of course, being the Chevy Nova, which didn't sell in Spanish speaking countries because Nova means doesn't go.
[20:49.690 --> 20:53.490]  And who's going to buy a car called doesn't go in that spirit.
[20:54.030 --> 21:03.530]  Um, the name Meta, uh, the new Facebook corporate name Meta, uh, sounds an awful lot like the Hebrew word for dead.
[21:04.510 --> 21:10.250]  Um, many Twitter users scoffed at the social media company's rebrand using the hashtag Facebook dead.
[21:11.310 --> 21:12.490]  Um, yes.
[21:12.610 --> 21:19.010]  So Hebrew speaker, Hebrew speaking Facebook users basically were dancing on Facebook's grave last week.
[21:19.410 --> 21:27.170]  Um, it's very important to make sure that your new name means what you want it to mean in different languages before you go ahead with it.
[21:27.790 --> 21:29.790]  Um, so yes, thank you for pointing that out, Emmanuel.
[21:30.510 --> 21:33.550]  That also goes for slogans of various sorts.
[21:33.690 --> 21:39.110]  Remember the old slogan, uh, for Coca-Cola, um, brings good things to life.
[21:39.550 --> 21:45.910]  Well, in, um, in China that translated to, uh, Coca-Cola will bring your dead relatives back to life.
[21:46.530 --> 21:51.270]  And that did not result in a good, uh, a good year for them.
[21:51.750 --> 21:52.190]  Yeah.
[21:52.270 --> 21:52.270]  Yeah.
[21:52.290 --> 21:53.810]  I think that's technically false advertising.
[21:54.150 --> 22:00.190]  Um, I mean, it's never worked for me anytime I've, maybe I'm just not doing the ritual correctly, but, uh, nobody wanted that.
[22:00.330 --> 22:02.270]  Nobody wanted their dead relatives coming back to life.
[22:02.550 --> 22:02.550]  No.
[22:02.770 --> 22:07.230]  Especially not on a cloud of carbonated sugary water.
[22:07.510 --> 22:08.470]  That would be just weird.
[22:09.870 --> 22:13.770]  So now this, this facial recognition systems of Facebook shutting it down.
[22:14.010 --> 22:15.150]  Is that really true?
[22:15.670 --> 22:15.870]  Indeed.
[22:16.210 --> 22:27.330]  Uh, apparently since, uh, since around 2010, they've had a feature which would use facial recognition algorithms to automatically recognize people in photos and media you upload and helpfully tag them for you.
[22:27.870 --> 22:38.950]  Um, uh, uh, yes, the feature was introduced in December, 2010, and, uh, it would link those, uh, those people's accounts to the images, even if, uh, they, they did not consent or they did not upload the images themselves.
[22:39.150 --> 22:46.030]  And I know a lot of people have been complaining about this, um, since it was instigated because not everybody wants their faces on Facebook.
[22:46.510 --> 22:57.730]  Um, and it only took them 10 years of gathering this data, profiting from it, and using it in all sorts of ways before they stopped to reconsider and thought, okay, they're going to, they're going to delete that.
[22:58.530 --> 23:02.470]  And, you know, we could, we could say they're doing something right, I guess.
[23:02.690 --> 23:03.530]  So, uh, I don't know.
[23:03.590 --> 23:04.150]  What do you think, Alex?
[23:06.130 --> 23:06.530]  Yeah.
[23:06.810 --> 23:15.990]  I mean, I, I think, look, it's all fun and games, you know, to beat up on Facebook all the time because, you know, they never seem to be getting it right.
[23:16.170 --> 23:23.650]  And ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it's been, I think, you know, really quite difficult and, uh, inside the company.
[23:24.030 --> 23:32.810]  But, you know, look, this is something where it seems like they've come to their senses with respect to, to privacy and have been listening to privacy advocates for some time.
[23:32.950 --> 23:35.390]  And this is a company that's taking a move in the right direction.
[23:35.770 --> 23:40.050]  And so I think that, uh, on the one hand, we can applaud them for this.
[23:40.190 --> 24:00.050]  On, on the other hand, uh, when it comes to biometrics and facial recognition in particular, what remains to be seen is whether or not that's going to be the case for meta, the new metaverse focused, rebranded Facebook as well, because obviously faces and biometrics and things like that are going to be,
[24:00.210 --> 24:09.030]  uh, even more important in this virtual reality of the, of the metaverse that we had been talking about, um, uh, a bit last week as well.
[24:09.850 --> 24:18.350]  Um, so in as much as they're backing away from it, I think that, you know, they, it remains to be seen the extent to which they are backing away.
[24:18.790 --> 24:23.670]  But on the, uh, to go back to my original point, I think this is a step in the right direction.
[24:23.950 --> 24:32.470]  And every once in a while, I think we should applaud a company, even a company that you may not be fond of for doing the right thing.
[24:33.370 --> 24:34.810]  Um, uh, yeah.
[24:35.150 --> 24:36.930]  And, and so, you know, I'll, I'll leave it at that.
[24:37.090 --> 24:54.410]  But one, one thing I would like to, to mention specifically about this rebranding that we had mentioned, aside from the, uh, the semantics that are often lost in translation here, there's a, a new issue that's come to light with their particular name that I have identified myself,
[24:55.230 --> 24:56.570]  uh, since Thursday.
[24:56.930 --> 25:04.530]  So the, the rebranding of Facebook as meta came out on Thursday was the official announcement.
[25:05.210 --> 25:16.990]  Um, on Thursday, I had then decided to baseline the total amount of domains in the domain name system that contained the word meta in them.
[25:17.270 --> 25:34.490]  And to give you some benchmarks, uh, leading up to something like, uh, you know, the Superbowl or the World Cup, you would often see, you know, a bunch of domains registered per day trying to capitalize on the enthusiasm for the event.
[25:34.750 --> 25:38.730]  And, and if you would see 10 or 20 a day, that was a lot, that was a lot.
[25:38.810 --> 25:39.650]  That's a lot to handle.
[25:39.890 --> 25:46.850]  Now, when the coronavirus kicked off last year, I started monitoring things, uh, monitoring DNS and domain name activity for the coronavirus.
[25:47.010 --> 26:05.270]  And we started seeing, uh, massive upticks in registrations, 200, then 400, then over a thousand at the peak and the height of the virus last year, around, um, May of 2020, I started seeing over 3,500 registrations per day of domains focusing on the coronavirus.
[26:05.810 --> 26:09.830]  Now, what I saw with meta was absolutely fascinating.
[26:09.890 --> 26:16.430]  It was completely different and exponentially larger, uh, than anything we had seen with Facebook.
[26:16.970 --> 26:31.210]  And, you know, I think it all has to do with the fact that, again, this is as, as, uh, Gil had mentioned, this is a global brand, but they're rebranding to a name that has a generic meaning as well.
[26:31.250 --> 26:34.770]  And that's, uh, a very unusual situation.
[26:34.770 --> 26:46.610]  So between Thursday and Friday, I identified over 15,000 new meta domains, brand, brand new minted in the domain name system.
[26:46.850 --> 26:52.590]  And a great deal of those domains don't pertain to Facebook or to meta.
[26:52.850 --> 27:07.710]  A lot of these domains pertain to other company services, you know, might be something, you know, like meta dash, you know, whatever amusement park is or, or meta dash, you know, whatever a trademark is, meta dash product, because meta now is this new thing.
[27:07.890 --> 27:10.450]  Even though it's an old term, it's a new thing.
[27:10.590 --> 27:13.130]  It's a new brand that's been globally changed.
[27:13.550 --> 27:15.290]  And that was just the first day.
[27:16.130 --> 27:26.330]  As of today, between Thursday and today, there are over 55,000 new meta domains running wild on, on the internet.
[27:26.910 --> 27:39.930]  And this is something that even if Facebook had, you know, a team of people trained on this, there's no way that they could get 55,000 of these domains under control within a week.
[27:40.050 --> 27:41.470]  There's a, there's a lot to do for this.
[27:41.570 --> 27:55.930]  And, and for a lot of companies, organizations, and especially smaller companies or nonprofits that are out there, they probably don't even know that they're being cyber squatted on with regard to having their name plus meta or meta dash their name, uh,
[27:56.090 --> 27:57.050]  registered in the DNS.
[27:57.390 --> 28:12.310]  This now presents, you know, brand dilution problems, cyber squatting problems, trademark infringement issues, and also cybersecurity issues can arise from this because it's been pretty easy for, uh, a malicious actor to use these domains for phishing,
[28:12.510 --> 28:17.010]  for credentials harvesting, for all kinds of illicit activity, if they were so inclined.
[28:17.190 --> 28:26.630]  And so Facebook's rebranding of itself has created intellectual property problems for a massive amount of companies around the world.
[28:26.950 --> 28:37.450]  And I think in a wholly unintentional basis, I don't think anybody could have predicted this type of activity being so prolific in this volume and velocity of domain registration.
[28:37.750 --> 28:41.870]  So 55,000 between Thursday and today.
[28:42.430 --> 29:00.330]  Alex, I have to say, I think, I think we all could have predicted this because when you use a word like meta, which has so many different applications and uses, and it's, as you say, more of a generic name, it's just, it's inevitable that many more people will be registering for one reason or another.
[29:00.570 --> 29:01.830]  Imagine the word cyber.
[29:02.330 --> 29:08.750]  How many domains do you think are being registered every day with some variation of cyber?
[29:09.290 --> 29:10.670]  Well, I'll tell you next week.
[29:11.210 --> 29:11.970]  Yeah, tell me next week.
[29:12.110 --> 29:20.450]  But if I can go back to what you were saying about, about praising Facebook, um, you know, it's the way I see the whole facial recognition thing.
[29:21.310 --> 29:26.250]  Um, did they ask you if they could scan your face, identify you by your face?
[29:26.390 --> 29:27.130]  Because they didn't ask me.
[29:28.030 --> 29:30.130]  Eventually, I think they had to ask everybody.
[29:30.310 --> 29:33.450]  I think they changed their tune and it was an opposite end basis.
[29:33.850 --> 29:39.350]  Well, they, they scanned an awful lot of faces, uh, I think over a billion users.
[29:39.650 --> 29:43.090]  Uh, and, um, I consider that an invasion of privacy.
[29:43.230 --> 29:49.910]  When somebody goes around invading your privacy over and over and over again, do you thank them when they stop?
[29:50.270 --> 29:52.050]  Do you thank them when they're forced to stop?
[29:52.450 --> 29:59.070]  I think, you know, if, if you want to thank anybody, it should be the people that called attention to this and had objected to this.
[29:59.190 --> 30:00.570]  They're the real reason why they stopped.
[30:01.670 --> 30:02.110]  Yeah.
[30:02.310 --> 30:14.590]  And indeed, uh, Facebook, I, I don't know if we can say their motives are completely pure when, uh, it's on record that, uh, states and countries everywhere are starting to regulate facial recognition and how it can be used within, uh, within where they are.
[30:14.770 --> 30:22.410]  And I have Facebook might just be heading off at the pass, any thorny legal issues, uh, involving their still being able to operate in those states and places.
[30:22.630 --> 30:39.050]  Well, I think it's also very interesting to look at where this came from, because as I understand it, and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, this was part of the whole kind of insidious part of what Facebook does, uh, you know, not to impute such terrible motives,
[30:39.210 --> 30:52.270]  but it's the facial recognition that you got when, like, if I posted a picture of me and three of my closest friends, Facebook would look at all the pictures I already had and it would say, oh, hey, do you want to tag these people in this picture?
[30:52.430 --> 30:53.810]  Like you've tagged them in other pictures.
[30:53.810 --> 30:58.330]  And I have to say, they're not the only company that does that, right?
[30:58.450 --> 31:04.150]  We have a Google photo album that we share with our family in another state because we have a baby nephew.
[31:04.450 --> 31:08.450]  There are pictures of him from two, like at two hours old, there are pictures of him now.
[31:08.910 --> 31:15.690]  And if you post a new picture of him, Google says, oh, hey, is this this two hour old baby in this picture?
[31:15.850 --> 31:29.070]  So it, and it can, like, I will say that as a consequence of not being able to see her hairdresser for a long time during the pandemic, my mother has stopped dying her hair.
[31:29.710 --> 31:31.410]  But Google figured it out.
[31:31.550 --> 31:36.570]  So there are pictures of her with brown hair that pop up and pictures of her with white hair that pop up and it knows it's her.
[31:37.390 --> 31:43.010]  And I will also say my mother and I look an awful lot alike, but Google can tell us that.
[31:43.310 --> 31:46.190]  Not everyone we know can, but Google can.
[31:46.410 --> 31:57.050]  But then we're also thinking about coming up against the limits of this technology because for all the bells and whistles about it, facial recognition is still not very good in certain situations.
[31:57.710 --> 31:59.830]  It can tell identical twins apart generally.
[32:00.230 --> 32:04.950]  Also, it still generally doesn't work well on people of color and things like that.
[32:05.070 --> 32:09.670]  It's optimized for the people who program most of it, which is white male people.
[32:09.950 --> 32:16.330]  So if you don't fit the algorithms well, you risk being misidentified or not identified at all.
[32:16.590 --> 32:24.410]  And when people start depending on these databases, we've talked on this program about police departments using them and arresting the wrong person.
[32:25.230 --> 32:28.830]  There's a lot more at risk here than just privacy on a social network.
[32:28.950 --> 32:35.390]  Not that that isn't important, but the larger issue of facial recognition and its use really bears more scrutiny.
[32:35.590 --> 32:35.710]  Yeah.
[32:35.810 --> 32:50.110]  I don't know if there's a way to get this particular genie back in the bottle, if you will, because Google, excuse me, Facebook not doing it in this one context doesn't stop a lot of what was happening and isn't going to stop a lot of other ways it's happening.
[32:50.990 --> 32:52.930]  There seems to be some kind of a trend though.
[32:53.150 --> 33:01.170]  I noticed today there was another story that came out about Clearview AI being ordered to delete all their facial recognition data in Australia.
[33:02.030 --> 33:02.430]  Yes.
[33:02.430 --> 33:03.090]  Did you guys hear about this?
[33:03.090 --> 33:03.750]  Yes.
[33:04.070 --> 33:05.390]  A story in The Verge about this today.
[33:06.430 --> 33:15.270]  They basically, they claim to have scraped 10 billion images of people from social media sites in order to identify them in other photos, and they sell their technology to law enforcement agencies.
[33:15.950 --> 33:20.650]  And it was trialed by the Australian Federal Police between October 2019 and March 2020.
[33:21.150 --> 33:30.490]  And now following an investigation of all this, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which regulates privacy over there, has found that the company breached citizens' privacy.
[33:31.430 --> 33:38.290]  A press statement by him says, the covert collection of this kind of sensitive information is unreasonably intrusive and unfair.
[33:38.530 --> 33:47.530]  It carries significant risk of harm to individuals, including vulnerable groups such as children and victims of crime, whose images can be searched on Clearview AI's database.
[33:48.330 --> 33:58.690]  And this is coming from Australia, which has not been the most protective of the individual civil liberties of its people regarding digital technology lately.
[33:58.890 --> 34:00.530]  But this is this is over the line there.
[34:00.650 --> 34:01.950]  And now Clearview is in trouble.
[34:03.510 --> 34:16.310]  And, you know, if we could just veer back to Facebook for a second, as far as creepy headlines, this from Ars Technica, as teens left Facebook, the company planned to lure six year olds, according to documents.
[34:17.010 --> 34:22.950]  Yeah, six year olds, they're trying to lure them into some kind of a Facebook product.
[34:24.930 --> 34:26.690]  Basically, it was an internal post.
[34:26.890 --> 34:39.570]  It said that this new team working on a youth platform was working to formulate, quote, strategies on experiences for the spectrum of age groups, unquote, ranging from six to 16 plus.
[34:40.150 --> 34:52.530]  You know, I don't know if your business model, it basically involves luring, basically toddlers into your service.
[34:52.750 --> 34:54.130]  I think you're doing something wrong.
[34:54.410 --> 34:55.770]  I think you're doing something immoral.
[34:56.510 --> 35:01.430]  You know, just imagine imagine the hell that so many of us have gone through with social media.
[35:01.670 --> 35:07.730]  And you're going to flick that on someone who's barely been on this planet a few years.
[35:08.290 --> 35:10.830]  It's I can't even wrap my head around it.
[35:10.950 --> 35:12.270]  I still can't believe this headline.
[35:12.270 --> 35:13.590]  Yeah, it's gloomy as hell.
[35:13.650 --> 35:17.310]  And it's based on a document that was leaked by Facebook whistleblower Francis Haugen.
[35:18.050 --> 35:22.530]  And I'm looking at that document itself, which is an internal Facebook communication.
[35:22.890 --> 35:29.570]  And the big cheerful heading at the top is, the internet wasn't built with young people in mind, but we're about to change that.
[35:31.110 --> 35:45.330]  Yeah, it goes on, we're looking for researchers across a variety of teams and roles that include understanding the landscape of households globally, etc, etc, strategists on experience for the spectrum of age groups, kids six through nine, tweens 10 through 12,
[35:45.610 --> 35:51.050]  early teens 13 through 15, late teens 16 plus that includes net new products, e.g.
[35:51.190 --> 35:53.190]  IG, that's Instagram for tweens.
[35:54.350 --> 35:56.710]  Yeah, this is all just very gloomy stuff.
[35:56.890 --> 36:09.210]  And if you can speak plainly about let's exploit really little children, and that's your internal communications about how to get your business model really going, um, you're doing something wrong.
[36:10.190 --> 36:18.850]  I, yeah, I mean, you don't see, you don't have the self awareness to see the predatory nature of this whole model, as he was describing.
[36:19.150 --> 36:40.990]  That's one thing, but also to have that sort of, um, uh, uh, uh, sense that you're self aggrandizement that you can just fix everything and or navigate that and something so, um, sensitive, uh, and, and come up with the right formula to make it work is,
[36:41.130 --> 36:42.290]  is even crazier.
[36:43.630 --> 36:49.850]  The other thing that I was thinking about was when I was six, we had a computer in the house.
[36:50.430 --> 37:01.250]  I used to spend time on the computer playing a game called funnels and buckets, which was an arithmetic game.
[37:01.310 --> 37:01.950]  And it was amazing.
[37:02.110 --> 37:04.270]  And, and I found it on the internet archive.
[37:04.270 --> 37:09.030]  They have an emulator, but every processor works too fast now to play funnels and buckets.
[37:09.750 --> 37:10.970]  But this is the thing.
[37:11.170 --> 37:15.630]  I could play funnels and buckets for hours.
[37:16.310 --> 37:18.190]  And it was a math game.
[37:18.330 --> 37:20.570]  So at least you could say maybe I was learning something.
[37:20.770 --> 37:30.670]  But if there was an Instagram analog or Facebook analog for kids who were six or seven years old, I shudder to think what that would do.
[37:31.090 --> 37:37.150]  And the idea of having time to be a kid without creating your own social media footprint.
[37:37.390 --> 37:53.690]  And as we've talked about a lot is the freedom to, you know, before everything was so aggressively tracked and marketed online all the time, you had the freedom to create a new, create a new screen name and, and mess up and hide your identity and do all sorts of different things.
[37:53.830 --> 37:58.110]  And now if you create a Facebook account, when you're six years old, could you even imagine?
[37:58.410 --> 37:59.570]  Could you even imagine?
[38:01.390 --> 38:01.770]  Yeah.
[38:01.850 --> 38:10.030]  Imagine the things you did when you were six years old and what people were saying about when you were six years old, coming up when you're at a job interview and they, they do a search about you.
[38:10.290 --> 38:10.530]  Mm hmm.
[38:12.610 --> 38:21.750]  A lot of those, uh, users of their platform too, that, um, started out, they're all, um, I'm assuming much older now.
[38:21.990 --> 38:27.050]  Uh, the platform itself, when it started in its beginnings, wasn't the same thing.
[38:27.050 --> 38:42.710]  It was not at all, um, as capable as, uh, and, um, and, uh, doing it any of anywhere near as much with the personal information and, and, um, uh, capabilities that it has now.
[38:43.110 --> 38:50.290]  So it's, it's a much different, um, uh, and also the users coming in, they didn't really know what to expect back now.
[38:50.430 --> 39:03.470]  We have a lot more, well, we're still trying to figure out what is this thing for, but like, uh, at least we know, uh, that there, there is some data coming now that about the downsides, especially all this internal stuff.
[39:03.650 --> 39:04.030]  Yeah.
[39:04.070 --> 39:09.190]  We, we, we seem to make this mistake over and over again, where, uh, technology improves, which is cool.
[39:09.450 --> 39:12.110]  And we have services that we use, which are cool.
[39:12.250 --> 39:19.750]  And then we, we merge the two of them together and say, well, because technology has improved using it with this service has to be good.
[39:19.990 --> 39:21.670]  And it doesn't always work that way.
[39:21.790 --> 39:28.310]  Sometimes when you improve technology and you apply it to something else where it really doesn't belong, you wind up creating a monster.
[39:28.530 --> 39:32.250]  And I think that's what we're witnessing right now with these social media groups.
[39:32.410 --> 39:42.350]  Facebook is really turning into something that's nothing like what it began as, and it's turning into something that is a real threat to us as individuals and democracy, you name it.
[39:42.750 --> 39:51.970]  Anything good right now is, is under threat because of this incredible technology, which I still believe is, is really cool and incredible, but it's being misused.
[39:53.390 --> 39:53.910]  Absolutely.
[39:54.390 --> 39:56.610]  And, uh, there, there are other considerations too.
[39:56.710 --> 40:10.370]  I mean, I'm, I'm always telling people that I'm glad that I got my own childhood, my adolescence, my teens, even out of the way before, um, having your real name online and having your pictures on social media was a thing because I, there is a lot that,
[40:10.510 --> 40:17.230]  uh, that happened in my life that I am glad to be able to forget and, uh, that I am glad was not shared with the world at large.
[40:17.490 --> 40:19.870]  It was just, uh, it was just the way it was.
[40:19.950 --> 40:22.170]  And, you know, in school I was heavily bullied.
[40:22.170 --> 40:25.790]  It was very traumatic, but, you know, I could leave it at school for the most part.
[40:25.790 --> 40:29.370]  Um, now, you know, bullying does not stop.
[40:29.510 --> 40:44.950]  You're on social media 24 seven and it vulnerable people are being put in positions of extended vulnerability because of companies like Facebook, trying to monetize them in, in these ways and trying to, uh, shape their behavior to, uh, to get them into using these things.
[40:45.110 --> 40:53.690]  Uh, they've, they've been criticized lately for using the tactics that the tobacco industry was, uh, prevent, was banned from using on, uh, to advertise cigarettes to children.
[40:54.450 --> 40:59.370]  And it's, uh, it's, it's really, uh, a lot, uh, a lot of a similar danger, I think.
[41:02.150 --> 41:02.550]  Yeah.
[41:02.710 --> 41:12.130]  And along those lines, you know, somebody who's a father of, of two kids here, I think, you know, it's the, it, the issue isn't just Facebook.
[41:12.430 --> 41:20.230]  Uh, you know, I think it's, it's much wider and, you know, it certainly crosses the gap over, over to YouTube in particular.
[41:20.410 --> 41:25.090]  I mean, when my oldest son was a bit younger and he was watching YouTube videos, it was incredible.
[41:25.470 --> 41:32.910]  The different types of rabbit holes that he would fall into and some of the wildly inappropriate content that would show up for, for kids.
[41:33.130 --> 41:37.030]  And, um, and a lot of this is geared towards toys and marketing.
[41:37.030 --> 41:42.470]  And it's, look, the whole ecosystem is really pernicious, I think with respect to children.
[41:42.830 --> 41:47.850]  And it certainly is not just Facebook, but it's apps, it's app stores, it's video games.
[41:47.850 --> 41:53.870]  I mean, kids that are a little bit older are completely enamored with Roblox right now.
[41:54.030 --> 41:56.830]  And they're growing up in these virtual type of worlds.
[41:56.830 --> 42:00.090]  And, and, and this is how they're interacting with people now.
[42:00.210 --> 42:01.670]  And this is the normal for them.
[42:01.730 --> 42:08.190]  It's not like for, for us, where we grew up and we saw the evolution of the technology that permitted us to do this.
[42:08.250 --> 42:13.390]  And to a certain extent, we understand the fundamentals of this technology.
[42:13.390 --> 42:14.650]  So it doesn't just work.
[42:14.650 --> 42:19.250]  It's not just magic, but for these kids growing up with it, this is just part of who they are.
[42:19.450 --> 42:21.890]  They, they don't think about going to Toys R Us anymore.
[42:22.030 --> 42:25.010]  They think about ordering toys from Amazon.
[42:25.290 --> 42:26.950]  Well, they can't go to Toys R Us.
[42:27.410 --> 42:27.850]  Exactly.
[42:28.210 --> 42:29.490]  They're, they're out of business, right?
[42:29.690 --> 42:39.490]  They, you know, toys now are synonymous with Amazon and watching videos are synonymous with Amazon or YouTube or Disney plus or any of these, these platforms.
[42:39.690 --> 42:42.930]  And so it's a completely different world that these kids are growing up in.
[42:42.930 --> 42:53.110]  And, and I think we're kidding ourselves to a large degree if we think that we can protect them or, or cause them to have a similar childhood that, that we had.
[42:53.310 --> 42:54.490]  They're going to grow up in this.
[42:54.570 --> 42:56.270]  I think we have to do our bit to protect them.
[42:56.430 --> 43:02.270]  We have to make sure that their data is much more protected and their choices are knowing and voluntary.
[43:02.270 --> 43:11.610]  And the choices that they make to join or not join or share their data are, are knowing and voluntary, uh, and made at an age when they can make that decision reasonably.
[43:12.370 --> 43:22.110]  Um, it's a, uh, it's, it's a really insane kind of ecosystem that you see targeting kids with, with ads and, and they're sharing their data.
[43:22.210 --> 43:26.610]  And you have no idea where your kids is data is going these days.
[43:26.770 --> 43:34.730]  I mean, you can't use the CCPA, the California Consumer Protection Act to protect your children that are outside of that, that state.
[43:34.890 --> 43:37.330]  And so I think the laws need to catch up here.
[43:37.610 --> 43:39.410]  The companies need to do the right thing.
[43:39.730 --> 43:55.110]  But, uh, it is certainly an exploitable market and that data is extraordinarily valuable because the ability to track somebody from, uh, being a, a young person through their adult life is, is where we are.
[43:55.290 --> 43:56.870]  We are, where we are headed right now.
[43:57.130 --> 44:10.550]  But Alex, I do believe you can protect your kids from this real evil that's out there just by, uh, knowing what they're up to, communicating with them, uh, making sure that they can trust you and that you listen to them.
[44:10.830 --> 44:17.430]  I know families where the computer is downstairs in the living room, not upstairs, not hidden.
[44:17.630 --> 44:24.250]  And if one of the kids wants to use a computer, they're there with the family and they're not hiding anything.
[44:24.250 --> 44:29.970]  They're not, uh, being, being lured into some dark alleyways in the internet or anything like that.
[44:30.370 --> 44:36.070]  And they're kids that, you know, that they're basically just, uh, uh, doing innocent things on the net.
[44:36.210 --> 44:38.750]  Nothing, nothing, no deep research or anything like that.
[44:39.510 --> 44:50.930]  You know, when, when you start encouraging that kind of behavior though, where people are, are, are basically spending all their time on Facebook or YouTube or, or God knows what, then you don't really know what they're up to.
[44:51.090 --> 44:57.410]  And then you start losing touch with them and it becomes more of a surprise when you do find out.
[44:57.610 --> 44:59.770]  I think we can stop that from happening at least.
[45:00.590 --> 45:01.450]  We can indeed.
[45:01.830 --> 45:16.090]  And, uh, you know, the, the trouble is, um, one, I think one bit of trouble is that the previous generation, the television generation got used to leaving kids in front of TV and being able to just walk away and the kids can consume media.
[45:16.330 --> 45:23.150]  Just, uh, you know, you set it to a cartoon channel or, you know, the kids, uh, the kid friendly part of the day or whatever, um, part of the broadcast day.
[45:23.330 --> 45:24.750]  And you could just do that.
[45:24.810 --> 45:25.930]  And it was passive.
[45:26.110 --> 45:38.850]  And when media became an interactive thing that, uh, the viewer has a role in, um, such as digital media, um, you cannot just leave that, um, there to, uh, to be used without supervision.
[45:38.890 --> 45:44.850]  And people expect people, people expect to be able to just sit their kids in front of it and it does not work that way anymore.
[45:44.850 --> 45:46.110]  So we have to adapt.
[45:46.250 --> 45:52.510]  We have to put the work in, um, parents have to put the work in, especially, and, uh, we have to keep things on healthy levels.
[45:53.410 --> 46:01.630]  Um, another story that, uh, has to do with the interactions between, um, social media companies, internet giants, and, uh, rules and regulations.
[46:02.150 --> 46:05.390]  Uh, Yahoo has pulled out of China for good completely.
[46:06.190 --> 46:06.630]  Yeah.
[46:06.830 --> 46:09.410]  I'm, I'm sure they're, uh, well-missed, uh, story.
[46:09.410 --> 46:10.730]  Wait, Yahoo's still around?
[46:10.930 --> 46:15.710]  They're still, they're still, they're still, uh, plugging away, uh, doing something or other.
[46:16.010 --> 46:20.070]  And, um, whatever it is they are doing, uh, you can't access it in China anymore.
[46:20.210 --> 46:23.290]  They're, they're the latest American tech company to exit the country.
[46:23.390 --> 46:24.330]  That's from CNN business.
[46:24.750 --> 46:26.410]  Uh, it, uh, pulls the plug.
[46:26.590 --> 46:31.950]  Uh, Yahoo spokesperson said it pulls the plug in recognition of the increasingly challenging business and legal environment.
[46:32.370 --> 46:35.630]  Uh, Yahoo remains committed to the rights of our users and a free and open internet.
[46:35.810 --> 46:37.350]  We thank our users for their support.
[46:37.530 --> 46:38.410]  All three of them.
[46:38.570 --> 46:46.950]  No, they didn't say that, but, uh, uh, so yeah, um, they've, they've, uh, been taking away access to their features just for the Chinese, um, since 2003.
[46:47.490 --> 46:51.810]  Um, in 2015, they closed their Beijing office, uh, eliminating 300 jobs.
[46:52.150 --> 46:54.310]  Um, and now they're, now they're just, uh, gone.
[46:54.770 --> 47:09.630]  And yeah, it's, it's interesting to see what was one of the, uh, the big behemoths of its time, uh, slowly, uh, fading away, but also like being chased away in, in, uh, in terms of, uh, staying in compliance with the laws of another land.
[47:14.060 --> 47:14.840]  In any case.
[47:15.220 --> 47:15.220]  Yeah.
[47:15.760 --> 47:16.200]  Yeah.
[47:16.300 --> 47:33.380]  And I, I, I think on that point, I mean, it shows that there's, there's a real limit here in terms of what countries can get away with doing and that when compliance costs and liability costs are, are going to outweigh the benefit of doing business or providing some kind of service to those people in country,
[47:33.560 --> 47:35.040]  the companies are going to pull out.
[47:35.700 --> 47:45.460]  And I, I see Yahoo pulling out of China as, you know, just a real sign of the times when China has these massive crackdowns on the tech industry and entertainment industry.
[47:45.740 --> 48:02.700]  And, um, and also, you know, they're, they're focusing a lot on inequality within China, but maybe focusing on inequality and, and forcing redistribution of wealth in ways that, you know, may not be beneficial to large portions of the population.
[48:02.700 --> 48:15.300]  But this really goes to show that, um, you can't just keep continuing to, to regulate and over-regulate and, and force compliance on these companies because they will certainly leave.
[48:16.240 --> 48:16.520]  Yeah.
[48:16.580 --> 48:22.280]  I think, I think the point there is also that you can't do both necessarily, right?
[48:22.280 --> 48:32.780]  You can't have something where it's like complete control and also, okay, yeah, we have this like sort of free market thing where all these Western companies are here and it's all great.
[48:33.140 --> 48:45.440]  And, and there's just, you know, um, all these adaptations and, and, uh, sensitivities that they comply with and, and, uh, uh, whatever kind of local business laws and stuff.
[48:45.580 --> 48:49.740]  But that's not something that can just continue to move.
[48:49.940 --> 48:55.860]  That has to be, um, uh, something people can count on that is consistent.
[48:56.660 --> 49:01.080]  And it sounds like the dynamics there are just so, um, hard to predict.
[49:01.080 --> 49:03.740]  You can't plan a business around it, which is what happened here.
[49:05.460 --> 49:10.260]  And, uh, their, their losses, uh, long lamented, I'm sure by those, uh, three, four users.
[49:10.880 --> 49:15.760]  Um, moving on, we've been, uh, we've been getting emails and I would, uh, like to encourage users.
[49:15.900 --> 49:17.160]  Uh, we still can't take your phone calls.
[49:17.220 --> 49:18.180]  We regret that very much.
[49:18.260 --> 49:21.620]  And we're going to get back to doing that as soon as we can on the tech side.
[49:21.620 --> 49:27.400]  But, uh, we also encourage you to send us your thoughts at OTH at 2600.com.
[49:27.820 --> 49:29.620]  And, uh, we've been getting some emails.
[49:29.820 --> 49:38.800]  Uh, we talked about signal last week and, uh, problems with problems with signal when, uh, you're trying to send messages to somebody who never closed their signal account, but no longer uses the app.
[49:38.960 --> 49:47.160]  And a few people have, uh, contacted us since to let us know the solution to that, which is, um, to long press on the send button.
[49:47.160 --> 49:52.520]  And you can choose to send an unencrypted SMS message versus an encrypted signal message.
[49:52.520 --> 49:54.980]  Um, so that will, that will solve that problem.
[49:55.140 --> 50:06.420]  If you're sending out signal messages and they don't seem to be getting where they're supposed to try long pressing on the send button, um, selecting an unencrypted message and sending that and, uh, see if that gets through.
[50:06.720 --> 50:09.400]  Um, like to thank everybody who sent that tip in.
[50:10.400 --> 50:15.920]  You have to assume that, uh, that's the problem and that the person who's not responding to you isn't simply ignoring.
[50:16.900 --> 50:20.980]  Well, this is another way to, uh, use the process of elimination to figure that bit out.
[50:21.180 --> 50:24.040]  Um, you could also try being nicer and maybe people wouldn't ignore you.
[50:24.140 --> 50:32.280]  I don't know, but we don't, we don't, uh, we're all the master of our own souls, but, uh, not an option at all.
[50:32.820 --> 50:38.780]  Um, we, we have also, I, I want to talk about, we have 2,600 meetings, um, all over the place this, this Friday.
[50:39.200 --> 50:42.400]  Um, look them up at, uh, 2,600.com slash meetings.
[50:42.680 --> 50:50.720]  There, there are some registered there and, uh, they're, they're, they have been, uh, chugging along since we've, uh, since we brought back in-person meetings.
[50:51.160 --> 50:53.540]  Um, in the New York City meeting, it's rather exciting.
[50:53.780 --> 50:56.040]  Uh, we are going to actually go back indoors.
[50:56.540 --> 51:03.320]  Um, we are going to celebrate, uh, in the food court where we, uh, used to meet at the atrium at 875 3rd Avenue.
[51:03.500 --> 51:05.420]  That's on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Lexington Avenue.
[51:05.640 --> 51:10.580]  You could find all the details on nyc2600.net.
[51:10.760 --> 51:12.480]  That's nyc2600.net.
[51:13.080 --> 51:15.040]  Um, but yeah, exciting times.
[51:15.240 --> 51:17.640]  Um, and, uh, you know, be masked up.
[51:17.820 --> 51:21.660]  Uh, we ask that you be vaccine vaccinated because that's important and you should be.
[51:22.420 --> 51:24.640]  Um, but, uh, yeah, there, there we are.
[51:24.800 --> 51:25.980]  We're, we're coming back.
[51:26.140 --> 51:34.220]  We are also doing the virtual meeting over, uh, zoom as we have been for people who, uh, can't or, or, or don't wish to attend in person.
[51:34.520 --> 51:37.100]  We'll have that available and, uh, we'll see.
[51:37.240 --> 51:38.300]  We'll see how it all goes from there.
[51:38.440 --> 51:41.420]  We'll try to have a connection to the virtual meeting from the physical one.
[51:41.840 --> 52:00.080]  Um, we'll see what kind of, what kind of connection, what kind of facilities we have And if you have a meeting that you want to have listed, write to us, meetings at 2600.com.
[52:00.280 --> 52:04.120]  Let us know where you want to have your meeting, what city, obviously.
[52:04.600 --> 52:08.820]  They generally take place the first Friday of every month, and they're open to everybody.
[52:08.980 --> 52:13.920]  And we ask that people observe all the caution that's needed in your particular area.
[52:15.200 --> 52:15.560]  Absolutely.
[52:16.140 --> 52:24.040]  And while we've got a few minutes, we've also been getting a lot of really cool suggestions for you guys, Emmanuel and Kyle, on places that you might visit.
[52:24.200 --> 52:32.180]  As you were explaining last week, you're going to be traveling cross-country back from the West Coast to the East and looking for stuff to check out on the way.
[52:32.260 --> 52:34.500]  Do you want to talk about that really quick while we've got a minute?
[52:34.500 --> 52:44.080]  Well, I'd like to just basically solicit more people to write in with more suggestions, because we will be heading out fairly soon.
[52:44.540 --> 52:47.260]  And basically, right now we're in the state of Washington.
[52:47.680 --> 52:52.960]  And the end goal is to be back where we belong in the state of New York, where you guys are.
[52:53.800 --> 52:57.020]  How we get there, that is something we have not yet decided.
[52:57.040 --> 52:57.660]  We have a vehicle.
[52:58.400 --> 52:59.720]  We have secured a vehicle.
[53:00.240 --> 53:04.420]  And we can go pretty much any way.
[53:05.000 --> 53:07.860]  We can even go into Canada if we had to, but I don't think we will.
[53:08.300 --> 53:09.460]  But we can go south.
[53:09.640 --> 53:10.920]  We can go directly across the north.
[53:11.080 --> 53:12.140]  We can go through the Midwest.
[53:13.780 --> 53:29.140]  All sorts of suggestions are welcome as far as interesting places to see, interesting examples of nature, odd towns and villages, bits of history, things like that.
[53:29.240 --> 53:31.760]  Things that are worth taking a drive to see or to experience.
[53:32.100 --> 53:33.820]  We can't really be too social.
[53:33.960 --> 53:39.780]  We can't really get together with people, unfortunately, because we're still in this crazy stage of history.
[53:40.200 --> 53:43.380]  But we are definitely open to checking things out.
[53:43.480 --> 53:47.160]  Just write to us, OTH at 2600.com with your suggestions.
[53:47.500 --> 53:48.860]  Please send them soon.
[53:49.020 --> 53:54.860]  And if we go to one of your places, we'll make a recording and we will give you credit and share it with everybody.
[53:55.500 --> 53:56.140]  Very cool.
[53:56.380 --> 53:57.940]  And we'll have to leave it there.
[53:58.880 --> 54:01.920]  Send us email again, OTH at 2600.com.
[54:02.060 --> 54:03.400]  We're Hacker Radio Show on Twitter.
[54:03.620 --> 54:05.720]  We're Hacker Radio Show at Mastodon.social.
[54:06.300 --> 54:07.880]  And we would like to hear from you.
[54:08.000 --> 54:08.460]  Get in touch.
[54:09.060 --> 54:10.940]  And have an excellent week.
[54:11.780 --> 54:12.920]  We'll see you in two weeks.
[54:13.200 --> 54:13.700]  Oh, yes.
[54:13.840 --> 54:14.700]  We're not on next week.
[54:14.860 --> 54:15.960]  We are preempted next week.
[54:16.020 --> 54:17.620]  We will see you in two weeks.
[54:17.740 --> 54:18.500]  Have a good two weeks.
[54:20.100 --> 54:20.460]  Bye.
[56:34.030 --> 56:35.430]  Bye.
[56:48.920 --> 56:50.320]  Bye.
[56:53.180 --> 56:54.580]  Bye.
[57:11.200 --> 57:12.600]  Bye.